Project Blue Wants to Photograph an Earth-like Planet at Alpha Centauri

(Credit: ESA/Hubble) Pale Red Dot fulfilled its goal of finding a planet around Proxima Centauri. But a new group, going under the name Project Blue, is ready to turn its attention toward the largest stars in the system: Alpha Centauri A & B. The goal? To do what others have failed to do: find a planet there. But not just any planet. The two year initiative will concentrate on finding a planet in the habitable zone of one of the stars. And they’ll try to snap a picture of it, a more distant “Pale Blue Dot” picture. It’s an audacious goal. The only directly imaged planets have been Jupiter-sized worlds a few million years old. But with a distance of 4.4 light years, there may be a chance to catch a planet there. The project will look in visible light spectrum in blue and green channels. It won’t be much. ...